


Wartime Flowers

by franticdesire



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Felix has feelings for his friends, Hanahaki Disease, He assumes both are romantic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-04-03 18:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21520597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franticdesire/pseuds/franticdesire
Summary: Yellow Roses -Friendship, jealousy, infidelity, apology, a broken heart, intense emotion, undying love, extreme betrayalWhite Heathers -Protection
Relationships: Sylvix
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

Of all the bad timing in the world, the petals had to fall into his hand again as they rushed the boar off the battlefield. He didn’t need this reminder, he didn’t need any reminder, he could have gone his whole life without his own body forcing little white flowers and yellow petals out of his mouth. 

He didn’t need to be reminded that he had feelings for the boar they were trying to keep from charging back into the bloodbath. He didn’t need a reminder that he had feelings for the only friend who seemed to put up with him still. He didn’t need to be reminded of either thing that hurt him so, so deeply whenever they spoke to him. What he needed was for them to be safe! What he needed was this war to not happen, for his own purpose to be protection against small attacks, to watch the backs of others from a distance, to argue against the way lives are valued. Maybe even to find a real purpose that spit in the face of his father’s expectations. He didn’t want to need to have to hide the flowers, toss them to the ground the moment he isn’t being watched. He didn’t want the feelings.

But he didn’t always get what he wanted. He never got what he wanted. Felix Hugo Fraldarius barely got to have his own identity like he wanted, what made him think that he’d get to have comfort in fantasy? He wasn’t certain either of them were capable of loving him and that should have been fine, he didn’t want them to be distracted by loving him, but it would be nice to not have confirmation. 

He pulls out gloves he rarely uses, sliding them onto his hands as quickly as possible, going to the prince’s side to grab him when nobody else would. Sylvain followed suit, grabbing hold of his other arm. Maybe Felix was alone with these flowers, maybe they’d only get worse, but at least he had help with things he should be worried about.

And he was worried. He was terrified. The flowers hurt, but he knew he’d die in this war protecting the boar, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. He could feel his lungs heavy still. 

Maybe they just weren’t capable of loving him. Maybe something had broken inside Sylvain that caused Felix to cough up the yellow rose petals, maybe the last shred of what was left in Dimitri broke that brought the Heather flowers. 

=

Finally off the battlefield, finally temporarily safe, Felix sat alone on the road home. Staring at the petals, he felt his chest tense up in a way he hated. Why did this have to happen to him? It would’ve been safer to head home with Sylvain and his battalion, not ride off by himself without another word. Somewhere along the lines, they must have stopped loving him. Maybe they never did. He was alone in his beliefs, why not be entirely alone?

Gripping the flowers tightly then tossing them into the fire, he watched them burn and wished they would just do him in. He wished even more that he’d never gotten curious about what they were.

Rose petals, he’d said. Those are yellow rose petals. Symbolizing an undying love and a betrayal at the same time. Jealousy and trust at the same time.

He remembers being disgusted with himself, shutting the voice that echoed in his mind down as quickly as he could. It didn’t matter if they’d just killed Miklan, these weren’t for Sylvain. He wasn’t dying for him, he wasn’t fucking doing that. They were supposed to live for each other, he’d thought that meant something.

Then the Heather flowers started to come. Entire flowers into his hands. He regrets being curious about those even more. He’d already come to grips with who the others were for and knew himself well enough to know who else he loved. But then the masks came off, Edelgard’s dragging Dimitri’s off with it.

He already knew what these meant, but he’d stood there with flowers cupped in his hands for too long. And maybe he wanted to hear they had a different meaning outside of Fodlan. He hoped they did, he hoped that it wasn’t only the one thing. 

Protection. He’d said it softly, as if he’d figured out what was happening to Felix. It wasn’t pity in his voice, it was understanding. At the time, it felt like a kick to the gut, having someone understand so instantly. He silently begged for the goddess to leave him alone if she was listening. The ones you’re holding symbolize the desire to protect what you love. 

What a disgusting thought, protecting what couldn’t be protected. Did he really want so badly to die for someone nobody would blame him for hating with the reasons he had? His brother died protecting a blood-thirsty monster and he wanted to too, or at least that’s what the flowers he watched burning said. Dimitri wasn’t even really alive anymore and Felix would forsake his beliefs and die for him in an instant… then there was Sylvain. He would die for him too. He hated that about himself.

The fact that the flowers began, not when he fell for either of them, but after horrible things happened really made it all worse to think about. Had they loved him? He knew they had to have cared enough to keep this terrible affliction away from him. How could his love run this deep? He didn’t understand.

Wasn’t it romantic? Being sentenced to die like this? It’s too bad Felix despised the romanticism of death. There’s nothing romantic about dying, there’s nothing romantic about a person being there one day and gone the next. 

There’s nothing romantic about fear.

=

Letters exchanged between the heirs to houses Gautier and Fraldarius came and went as they both tried to keep each other sane through the war. Small, white flowers were left to pile while yellow petals were held up to candles to be scorched. He crushed the burning petals with his hand to extinguish the flame, gloves providing more than enough protection from the burn.

Occasionally, he considered mentioning how sick he’d been getting over the years, but he knew nothing could fix this. He flicked a Heather flower off his writing desk and sighed. The least he could do was to make it the promised five years, then maybe he could see this war through. 

It was always quick work, sending the letter off in response the day he read the latest from Sylvain, then scolding his heart for the flowers coughed up as he wrote. Two people in the world knew, one of whom was almost certainly dead and the other would never part her lips about this secret. Occasionally, in her time healing, they’d run into each other and she would make sure he was still doing okay, ask if the roses had thorns yet, as that was one of the most popular tellings myth that was the illness.

He’d always shake his head and mutter a sarcastic thanks to a goddess who isn’t listening. She never tried to argue, but she offered prayers for his perseverance and health, he was glad for them, even if he could only respond to hearing them with grimaces and wishes for her to leave quickly. He wished desperately he could bear to have friends around, especially those who know what he’s experiencing, but it’s just all the harder to keep it to himself.

The one thing he took to heart was the way she took the white flowers between her fingers and smiled. He knew why she smiled and, for the first time since the mask fell, he smiled. He could live with the pain for a while longer if it meant he could know his heart still felt the Boar Prince’s heartbeat out there somewhere. Love had never been necessary, just the ability to know without a shadow of doubt that somewhere, he was still breathing. Maybe he could save him. Maybe the professor would come back and save him. Maybe Sylvain and Ingrid could save him.

Felix knew deep down that he wasn’t enough to bring him back, that’s why the flowers were there in the first place.

And she’d be over there, playing at her older sister to all the Lions shit, and she’d just know. She’d know exactly what was going on, maybe her having to heal him had confirmed it somehow. He’d never cast a healing spell on anyone with flowers appearing in their lungs, he didn’t know if that was possible. Did flowers truly grow in his lungs? It felt like they did. He wanted to replace them, get rid of this curse and replace his heart while he was at it. She calmed him down, kept him breathing.

He grew used to the way she treated him, maybe even fond of it, if he was being honest with himself. At least that was nice, having an older sibling again. He decided to never tell her that. He decided that nobody would ever get to know.

He thanked the goddess briefly that he didn’t have thorns in his lungs as he watched his friend leave. She would be a better goddess than Sothis ever was.

=

It ripped up his throat and the inside of his mouth. They’d always been petals, why were they full roses? Why could he not breathe? Was it really going to be this that brought him to his knees? 

He’d never seen blood on the petals before, he had no idea how to deal with this. It hurt so bad and he was scared to try to speak, thorns coming up in his throat couldn’t be good. He didn’t want to drown in his own blood, he didn’t want his lungs to get carved up by the garden suddenly growing violently in his lungs. 

He could feasibly be buried among the flowers he coughed up, maybe he would be to tie up the sick, twisted joke the world was playing on him. Those words echoed in his head louder and louder as he watched heathers appear with the roses, leaves and sticks coming up with them.

He wished he could at least be grateful for being alone, but he’d been sent to check up on someone. Her tiny hands worked quickly, trying her best to recall healing spells she obviously hadn’t had to use in ages.

Her nerves seemed to get the best of her as she began to hum a nervous song to herself.

He supposed he could die like this. It would be better than dying scared and alone, even if he hated the idea of someone being there to see him die.

He didn’t want to be a ghost on someone’s conscious. 

Thankfully, her singing helped calm her enough to remember the healing spells, casting it carefully on Felix and repairing his lungs as they went.

It lasted an hour.

Felix slept for days afterwards.

=

His father found out the day he returned home.

Felix has felt the weight in his chest as his father discussed with him the benefits to keeping search parties going to look for the prince. He, as always, didn’t want to hear about it. He agreed, his father had to know he did, but the conversations about the boar were hard on him, so he always wanted out of them. The frequency of the talks versus the frequency of the heathers from his lungs had too much correlation for him to not know the conversations aggravated his sickness too much, unlike the lessened frequency of the rose petals. 

He wondered if he was losing feelings as well and needed to be reminded of them to hurt. Felix shook those thoughts away each time they passed through his mind. He wasn’t immune to emotions, as much as he wanted to be. Maybe he was just getting smarter for once, picking one thing to kill him instead of two.

But he was wrong about everything. His father kept him rooted in place despite his mind’s wandering and his feet trying to move away. He wanted to storm off, but every part of him was captured by wanting to know how their futile search was going.

Flower buds suddenly littered the ground between Felix and his father, Felix crouching down and trying desperately to cover his mouth. It was never this bad, why did it have to be this bad? Why can’t things stop? And was Sylvain alive? Not a single trace of yellow among the flowers made Felix break for the first time in years in front of the man. Coughing hurt him enough to bring the tears, Sylvain not being with him hurt him enough for them to fall.

Rodrigue left him alone, disappointment coloring his face as Felix rushed to collect the flowers and shove them away into his pockets. He should have been able to leave. He shouldn’t have had to stay. He shouldn't feel these things. It wasn’t even a knightly thing to do, to die off the battlefield for someone. Not even his father would be happy if he died like this.

=

He received another letter from Sylvain, it was recently written and he was fine. The day that marked five years passing was quickly approaching and he wanted to know if they should meet up beforehand - grab some drinks and catch up with anything they’d wanted to say face-to-face.

Felix wrote back with his usual updates, a question on if anything happened a month before, and to decline the invitation to drinks. There was no way to safely get to the monastery from Gautier territory without cutting through Fraldarius territory, especially if Sylvain was planning on going it alone.

They were going to get drinks no matter what.

There was a response to his letter delivered while Sylvain was directly visible, Felix had no idea how he was managing to choke down the flowers with the way his heart was beating. It had been too long since he’d actually seen Sylvain. He didn’t hug people, he wasn’t about to start, but the relieved look on his face was likely enough for his old friend to know he was happy to see him. Maybe he wanted to hug Sylvain, just a little bit, to feel the heat of his body and the soft… Idiotic train of thought that would kill him some day.

Sylvain squeezed his shoulder and grinned, telling him to go ahead and read the letter, that it has more to say than would make sense to recite out loud all at once. Felix took a moment to look down at the letter then shoved it at Sylvain, making sure the other was fully aware that they could just speak to each other if there was anything important to say. 

Neither of them spoke of important things that night. They rode off together in the morning, at least one promise certain to be fulfilled.

=

Getting to Galatea territory went surprisingly smoothly. Felix took to simply falling back or riding ahead when he felt the uncomfortably familiar weight in his chest. 

She kept noticing, but always assumed the wrong things. Getting scolded for taking breaks without them were frustrating, the one time she assumed he was letting his nerves get to him was somehow worse than her assuming he was getting lazy. Nothing was getting to him and it was horrible to feel like he was letting things show. He didn’t want things to be visible on the surface, not these things, he didn’t need people around him to worry about him. Worry has never done anything but get people killed.

He hated that. He hated the idea that he could be letting anxiety distract him. She just had to be so fucking patronizing. If they could just get to the monastery and have their damned reunion with whoever was still alive, he could retreat to his old room and rest by himself. Hopefully, the boar not showing would knock some sense into him and help him escape the habits he’d had to form that were earning him the most annoying lectures possible.

At least Ingrid wasn’t mentioning Glenn.

=

The battle was easily won, the feeling of swinging his sword while being directed around by the professor was the most relaxing thing he’s done in years. It was horrible, feeling so at home on the battlefield, especially with how often he’d catch a glance at the walking corpse that used to house his friend. Every time he saw the boar move, heard him speak in that harsh tone he’d settled into, met eyes with him.

Felix hated eye contact with anyone, but especially with the dead. 

They were a smooth unit, they always were, fighting to protect each other as if their lives didn’t matter. He was glad there were enough people who valued each other’s lives on the battlefield that they had all made it back. Or, well, most everyone. The boar made a return, but there were no eyes full of disgusting understanding. He’d kill him if he decided to return later.

=

Meeting with the professor again after thinking they were dead for all those years, longer than the boar was thought to be dead, with their face looking exactly as he remembered it made him wonder briefly if the goddess was on their side, just not his.

He decided to pray to someone for the first time in years. Maybe they would help. Maybe they could help him come back. He was powerless to help bring the dead back to life, but something connected to the professor obviously wasn’t. 

It was like they were picking up where they left off. He saw them try to ask the boar to tea once, despite the beast’s refusal to even speak to people. They seemed to have items that had been misplaced years ago too, which would be weird if holding what was once his brother’s again didn’t bring him wave after wave of comfort.

He wondered if Glenn would have been able to save the boar from himself like he’d been able to save him from physically dying. He collapsed to his knees near the Goddess Tower, cursing the flowers and cursing his heart. 

At least there were less people with the free time to stand near the tower. At least things weren’t guarded nearly as well. He snuck into the tower, something students used to do on romantic rendezvous, and sat on the ground, crying as flowers forced their way out of his lungs. 

He missed the petals.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginnings of death, loss of flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has implied death of characters because it's a no-recruit fic! Nothing is explicit, but the characters are mentioned in various levels of implication. Also, incredibly unresolved angst.

Yellow didn’t seem to be coming back, but Sylvain didn’t seem to be leaving him alone. Funny that his feelings must have dulled with exposure. The pangs of jealousy when Sylvain talked to girls were just reactionary, it wasn’t like it was rare for him to feel things he couldn’t actually connect himself to. Adding residual love for someone who couldn’t and wouldn’t ever love him back was at least something he knew he felt at some point.

The months felt like they were swimming together, nothing was changing and not even the professor was really helping. The dead were piling up and the number of names that rang familiar in his ears only ever increased, but so did the numbness he felt at each name. He was losing his ability to mourn for people he knew. He could feel war killing his heart, maybe it would stop the flowers from choking him.

At least it wasn’t still Sylvain’s grip around his throat. The final fight with the roses left scars, he knew it in his heart that it had. He could hear them in his voice. He could feel them in the idiot’s clear, formerly comforting voice. He thanked whatever merciful goddess made some part of him listen to the screaming thorns, realize that that love tore his heart apart at the seams. He thanked his heart for finally catching up with his mind. Feelings would only kill him.

=

There’s not much that could manage to pull his mood out of the fucking gutter with reinforcements coming in the form of his father and the amount of convincing it took to get the boar to agree to changing goals for the literal safety of everyone in the army. People were alive and following him, it wasn’t just the fucking fake dead calling for blood.

He heard the prince muttering to himself — to Glenn, yet again — swearing to him over and over that revenge would be brought down, that the regrets that had been in Glenn’s heart when he died would be resolved, that through becoming a monster, he would free him. It made Felix sick. Whatever ghosts were there were lying, whatever visions were haunting him. How could the prince believe in whatever twisted visions were appearing? They’ve all been traumatized, they all occasionally hear things, but the blatant lies he was being fed by his own mind… It made him want to hurl.

The ghosts in the monastery weren’t like what Felix saw around circling the boar, the ghosts were lies. The willingness to believe the lies, the willingness to swear fealty to the lies and let the number of faces increase instead of focusing on the faces that were alive. The people who were alive. There were people who he could protect from dying with regrets now, people he could pay attention to and save from the hell in his mind.

Maybe he was already among those faces the boar prince actually acknowledged. Maybe the five years apart solidified the fakes to the point where the boar truly thought he was alone in this quest for revenge. Sometimes it seemed like someone else was speaking with his voice, it might be a second him that haunts whatever’s left of the boar’s mind. Felix figured he’d get there anyways, the way the boar had decided that revenge was first and everything else, everything else could come later.

Acid had melded with the petals and stems in their role of destroying Felix’s throat. And he let it. 

=

The battle at the bridge had been difficult, even with the return of one of their most beloved friends and the sparing of another. There was something about knowing the name, the face, the friendship of someone you cut down. Behind her soft smile, Felix could see her shoving her feelings down as he felt the warm magic stitching his wounds together. It was fine, he was shoving his own feelings down.

There was a warm presence that returned to them, gently holding her shoulder to hold her together for a moment before he returned to the boar’s side. That was where Felix knew he should be, the boar’s side, but maybe he simply wasn’t meant to fit there. The fear he’d felt was simply him being weak, wasn’t it? 

=

A girl joined their ranks. A child. Felix felt sickened beyond flowers. Nobody wanted this.

=

Felix felt jealousy so acutely despite not knowing what he was jealous of exactly. He didn’t want to serve the boar, he didn’t want to be blinded by devotion, he didn’t want any of that.

But then he locked eyes with the man beside Dimitri and felt the storm beneath the calm and he understood. He was jealous of being able to feel comfort in knowing where he was meant to be. He was jealous of being able to stand firm and be decisive. He was jealous of being able to have faith and actually feel it. He was jealous of being able to trust, to believe. To love without feeling like it was a curse on himself.

He wanted to be loved. He was willing to be killed by these flowers if it meant he could be loved for one moment.

=

He collapsed in the pews one of the days he had gathered himself enough to keep an eye on the boar prince. He’d turned around for just a brief moment, they locked eyes and Felix’s lungs couldn’t take it. He woke up in his own room and knew that everyone had to know, someone had to have taken him back. Flowers had to have been surrounding him when he passed out, but not a single one could be found anywhere. Nothing tucked away in some unfortunate fold of his clothes, it was like someone had taken the time to carefully remove the flowers.

He was alone, not even the flowers from his lungs were there to keep him company.

It wasn’t like him to sit and wallow and he wasn’t about to let that change, so he rose to his feet after a few minutes of coming back to reality and exited his room. 

Sylvain was there, standing alone with his back against the wall next to Felix’s door.

“Y’know, I think I finally understand you again,” Sylvain’s voice sounded sincere in the sharpest way, it scared Felix. He wasn’t used to Sylvain’s words feeling like a knife to his skin. “I get it, how you feel when everyone chooses Dimitri over you.”

=

The chance to talk about what was said never came. Battle came first then came learning that Felix’s father hadn’t spared a single word in his dying moments to wish him anything. Sylvain’s words rang too loudly in both their ears for either to say a single word about them, Felix didn’t understand. His heart hurt more than his lungs ever had.

=

They returned to the monastery, guilt eating through each of their souls. Some guilty over feeling joy at the return of a beloved friend, some guilty over not being the ones to die. Battles always ended with guilt wrapped around each surviving soldier, but the death of the duke and the young girl, it was suffocating.

The boar prince and his shield-by-birth walked closer together than they had in years, grief and regret holding them up like marionettes. They were closely followed by the man who chose to be the shield to the prince. Maybe he deserved to be the one who lived at his side, protecting him and being protected in return. Maybe the lack of anything but his heart in his throat meant he finally understood that he had no place loving any of the people around him.

Felix forced his mind away from the two of them. He thought of the fire surrounding that girl who could’ve been his friend. No flowers fought him on the march home after he started to focus on her. There were so many casualties in this war, but none were as all-consuming as hers. She wasn’t meant for war, none of them were. Standing beside those who you loved in situations like this caused nothing but death. 

It needed to stop before they were all ghosts haunting each other.

=

Sylvain avoided him for exactly half a day after the battle. It didn’t sound like much when Felix took the time to actually think about it, but it was obvious enough that it hurt. As much as he hated the man, his father had just died, he expected to have Sylvain show up for him. 

Which was ridiculous, seeing how Sylvain spoke to him the last time they spoke and the years of flower petals falling from his lips. The rose petals had only once been violent, so maybe some part of Felix thought Sylvain was just… eventually going to come around and keep him from the thorns. But then the thorns did come. But then the flowers did stop.

Felix felt an emptiness in his chest he’d never felt before. There was no connection to people he thought he’d loved, there was no evidence that he was still capable of feeling what he’d thought for years he’d felt. Something inside him suggested that he’d been losing his mind, that the flowers were never there, that the feelings were never there.

Maybe everyone had cleared out of the training hall because they knew he’d be there and were feigning politeness when in reality, they were scared of him. Imagine, being scared of someone who felt like a crushed child. 

“Did you ever read the letter?” Felix looked up at Sylvain’s voice, not sure how he didn’t hear his friend enter the training grounds or how he got so close. His lack of awareness of his surroundings concerned him. He would’ve gotten killed if he was on a battlefield or if Sylvain had any malicious intent with that perception.

Felix wasn’t actually ignoring the question, he just hadn’t been able to fully parse it. He heard the words, but he was in a state where the words felt like they didn’t have any meaning. Sylvain had seen him like this before, he was fully aware of it. Felix knew Sylvain was the only person who knew what was happening, he was the only one who would be able to recognize the need to be patient. He was always patient when Felix needed it, it didn’t make any sense.

Sylvain let out a sigh and shook his head, smiling his fake smile as if he was about to talk a child down from hammering a nail into something just to see if it could stay. Like he was talking down to an animal that couldn’t understand every word.

That wasn’t right, that wasn’t what was happening. He bit back the venom that he could feel building in his mouth without his permission. He could control the venom, it was easier after years of holding flower petals in. Biting his tongue, controlling his words, holding back whatever wanted to spill from his mouth.

“Don’t look at me like that.” The words are even. Perhaps in some other life, someone would be proud of him for learning how to be in control of words.

Sylvain’s face twists ever so slightly in confusion, he probably hadn’t realized he was looking at Felix like anything. Felix knew him well enough to know that the man wasn’t consciously in control of anything he did. The more conscious effort to look at Felix softly came after, equally as frustrating.

Felix put the training sword away. 

“If we survive this, reject me properly.” This time, Felix heard Sylvain’s words properly. They felt hauntingly like the words they’d both refused to speak about. Felix’s stance instantly became one of defense, this attack felt completely out of nowhere to him. Sylvain had no reason to assume rejection, nothing to be rejected from. 

“Leave,” was, unfortunately, Felix’s response. And Sylvain complied.

His chest was collapsing in on itself again, not even flower petals were there to hold shape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this will all be resolved by the end, none of these boys are good at their feelings and they're in the middle of a war. At least Felix isn't coughing up flowers anymore, right? That's good.
> 
> Thank you for reading this and if you read the first chapter when I initially posted it, thank you for waiting. I was hit with a severe writer's block, which seems to be fading a bit? Hopefully I'll have the next chapter up soon. It might be the last, there might be two more, I haven't decided yet. I know where this is going, but I'm not sure how long it'll be.

**Author's Note:**

> Was planning on posting this all at once, but I'm only about halfway done and at nine pages. I got too excited to wait to post it until I'm done.
> 
> Going to go over all the students' deaths in the next chapter, but no additional deaths will happen.
> 
> I'm writing and letting it come naturally, DimiSylVix was the plan initially, but it's coming up Sylvix. There will be no romantic Dimitri/Felix in this. Promise.


End file.
